Healthy Food Choices: Cheese

Cheese is a dairy product that predates recorded history, useful for its fat, calcium, proteins, and phosphorus. Try these tips for buying cheese in this healthy shopping video.

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Part of a healthy diet
Find reduced-fat hard cheeses
Choose soft cheeses made with part skim milk
Avoid fat-free cheeses for cooking
One slice or four cubes will equal one serving

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Michelle Cooper has been a registered dietician for more than 10 years. She currently works for the state of North Carolina for the New Hanover County School District in the Child Nutrition Department as the supervising registered dietician on staff. She specializes in child nutrition, child fitness and overall child health. She enjoys her job because it allows her to be a pivotal piece of child development.

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about cheese. Cheese can and should be part of a healthy diet. It provides our body with much needed calcium, protein and other vitamins and minerals. If you're going to choose hard cheeses like cheddar, you want to look for a reduced fat, lower-fat version. Hard cheeses are naturally lower in fat than their soft counterparts because they have a reduced content of the fatty or creamy part of the milk. If you're going to choose a soft cheese like mozzarella, you want to look for one that's made from part skim mozzarella or reduced calorie as well. One note, though, if you are going to be cooking with these cheeses, you don't want to get the fat free because the melting property is a little bit different, so you'll have to go with the light version and not the fat free. A serving of cheese is going to be about four dice. So when you think about a serving of cheese which is about 1 1/2 ounces, you want to eat about four dice or four cubes or one ounce of American cheese, and this can be part of your--it could meet your dietary need for calcium in a day. So remember, one, if you're going to choose the hard cheese, which is a good source of calcium, look for a reduced fat or lower-fat version. Number two, if you're going to use soft cheese, when reading the ingredients look for something with part skim. And number three, it can contribute to your calcium intake for the day but don't go overboard. One serving is about equal to four dice.

Healthy Food Choices: Cheese Video

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